I bought two yards of that chevron stripe material you see above and used it as a decorative table runner.

~The yellow "C"? I bought those for $1 at Joann's. They were originally just plain cardboard-ish color. I sprayed them bright yellow and called it a day. Carter got a huge kick out of those. And requested them for his room afterwards.

~Pineapples--who lives in one under the sea? You know it. They were on sale for a ridiculously cheap price at Fresh Market...score. It's like this city was BEGGING me to have a Spongebob party.

~While the kiddos had their cooler full of kid-appropriate drinks, I did a Bikini Bottom Bar for the adults. I mean, come on, McSister was coming after all. I found a white-washed crate at Joann's for 50% off...double score. Because hello, 50% off. And also because I could totally use this after the party....maybe to hold the kids' books in the playroom or something. For the party, I turned it on its side, put wine glasses inside and threw a decorative fisherman's netting over it for good measure.

~We played games at the party and unfortunately I put down my camera in order to MC these games so I do not have any pics. But far and away the BEST and most fun game we played was Spongbob Trivia: Kids vs. Adults. We took two chairs and set them up facing each other, and stuck a small table in the middle, Family Fued style. My biggest party fail was forgetting to get some sort of buzzer or bell they could hit to ring in with their answer. (If you do ever do this game, I HIGHLY recommend getting one!) Nevertheless, this game was a blast. I can't remember the exact link where I got all the questions from but it was similar to a site like this.

Naturally, the kids won but I think the adults were the real winners for the hilarity and creativity of their answers. The kids were AMPED about the game and for about an hour prior, the kids and adults did a lot of hilarious trash-talking to each other. Carter started it though. (that's written in maturity font).

~We gave those adorable Spongbob and Patrick cookies as the party favors to the kids. One day in my instagram feed, I saw a pic of the most amazing custom cookies evaaa. I happened to comment and say something not desperate at all like: PLEASE MAKE COOKIES FOR MY SON'S PARTY PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

You can find her on Facebook and follow her amazing creations on Instagram here.

And so to wrap up the longest post ever written, I never thought I would have so much fun planning a party for Carter with a very "commercialized" theme such as Spongebob but I have to say....I had a ball.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Hi. I am super tired. I was going to write you a fresh post today but....please refer back to the sentence prior to this one. So let's make an agreement that I will drink a RedBull and you will come back tomorrow and we'll try this again. Deal? In the meantime, here's a quick re-post for you to enjoy.....so your trip here today is not all for nothing!
***************************************************************

My five year old son is now wearing a size 13.5 shoe.
What does this mean? Will he be the next basketball superstar? I bet he will!
You’ll see! You’ll all see! JUST WATCH!
My wallet and I like to comfort each other with that daydream.

Since school is starting in two weeks, I’ll give the kid that his timing was good.
All his other pleas of “Mom, my shoes hurt! They are too small!” weren’t working.

But when I looked at the calendar and was like “SCHOOL’S STARTING IN TWO WEEKS??! NOW! WE MUST GO SHOE SHOPPING NOW!”

Online, of course. Because have you ever taken his two year old brother Carter to a shoe store?
Yeah, I made that mistake once.
I believe the store said our banishment is over in 2019.

And since my wild child Carter has solidified my decision that I am DONE having children, I think shopping for sneakers online with Matthew was about as close to my girl mom moment as I’ll ever get. So, I’ll take it. GLADLY.

After lots of perusing, we found a pair he liked. Free shipping, but it was ground shipping and it was coming from clear across the country. So it took an endless week for this thing to get here.

(And because I know everyone is saying DUH! ZAPPOS.com! NEXT DAY SHIPPING FOR FREE! Let it be known that Zappos did not have his size in the sneaker he wanted. And we couldn’t just PICK another sneaker. Oh no. Because suddenly this child has opinions on what he wants to wear and what looks “cool”. I know. Watch out, Justin Beiber.)

Everyday I had to answer the “Are my new sneakers here yet????” question.
It was a long week.

The big day finally arrived and as the FedEx guy handed me the package, it jingled.
YES, I SAID JINGLED.

It was at that moment that my brain kind of made this funny “Ruh roh” noise.

Matthew’s beloved, long-awaited sneakers turned out to be a box. Of screws.

And plastic clips and some metal thing.

Now if you think answering a week’s worth of “Are my new sneakers here yet??” questions won’t kill you, then I GUARANTEE that the 1,256,782 rapid-fire questions that come after you open a box of SCREWS that is supposed to be the new sneakers will.

WHAT IS THAT? WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SNEAKERS? WHO SENT US THIS MOMMY? WHY DID YOU ORDER A BOX OF SCREWS, MOMMY? YOU SAID MY NEW SNEAKERS WERE ARRIVING TODAY, MOM!! WERE YOU LYING? LYING IS A BAD CHOICE, MOM. WHAT???? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BAD GUYS??? BAD GUYS SENT US THE SCREWS?! BAD GUYS TOOK MY SNEAKERS??!! I HATE BAD GUYS! MOM ARE YOU GOING TO CALL THE POLICE? MOMMY, WHO ARE YOU CALLING? WHO IS AMAZON.COM? DO YOU THINK THE BAD GUYS WEAR A SIZE 13.5? I’M GOING TO BEAT THE BAD GUYS UP, MOM! HAHAHAHA!! YEAH, CARTER!! LET’S KICK THEM IN THE BALLSIES!!! HAHAHA! MOM? MOM? MOM, WHAT IS AMAZON.COM SAYING? TELL THEM MY BROTHER AND I WILL KICK THEIR BAD GUYS IN THE BALLSIES!!

The good news?

1. My credit card was fine because when you purchase through Amazon.com from a 3rd party seller, they pay the seller directly and then Amazon.com charges your card. So it protects your card from the “bad guys”.

2. ShoeMetro.com (the 3rd party seller on Amazon) was EXTREMELY helpful and fully refunded my money. I emailed photos so they could file a complaint with FedEx as it was determined that the package was sliced opened, the shoes were stolen and replaced with a box of random screws and clips, and then it was taped back together. They believe this to have happened after it left the ShoeMetro warehouse. I have no clue.

But I do know this nice customer service rep named Toni and I bonded.

We laughed, we cried.

I asked her if she needed any plastic clips.

She told me there was no amount of money in the world that I could pay her to switch spots with me so that she could be the one answering the six million questions that I was getting hammered with by my sons.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Today at the park, my kids kicked off their shoes. GROSS.
But we were getting close to leaving and I was too busy packing up our things to yell at them.

Carter comes running up to me and screams “I HAFTA POOP AND I NOT GONNA MAKE IT!”

Let me draw you a map so you can understand where we were and where the bathrooms were:

And so we begin our cross-country RUN for the bathroom.

We are about 2 hours into our journey of The Amazing Race For The Bathroom and I look down at Carter’s feet and my run turns into a bad dream, slow-motion “Noooooooooooooooooooo”.

My son is running to a public bathroom. BAREFOOT.
In that instant, all I could think of was this:

At this point, we are somewhere in Kansas.
Should we go back to Florida for the shoes???
We MUST! I AM NOT RAISING BRITNEY SPEARS!!!!

“BUT MOMMY I REALLY NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!!!!!!! I GOTTA GO NOWWWW!”

It was a horrible game of Would You Rather and I was screwed either way.

I’m not even going to go into details of how I tried to carry him and hover him above the toilet because I couldn’t set him down to wrap the toilet seat in 20lbs of toilet paper coverage because if I set him down OMG!!HE WILL GET HOOKWORMS!!
Public bathrooms are crawling with hookworms, everyone knows that!
Also?
Deadly diseases and bad grammar.

And let’s not discuss how I gave in and eventually let him sit on the toilet because have you ever tried hovering 40lbs for like 15 minutes? Someone pass him a magazine.

Or what about when he jumped down off of the toilet and his tiny toes touched the ground and I screamed HOOKWORMS!!!!!!!!!!! CARTER, HOOKWORMS!!!!!!
And then he got all scared and was like “MOMMY, HOLD ME!”
And I scooped him up but hello, the child still needed to be wiped and honestly WHERE WAS THIS MOMENT IN THE WHAT TO EXPECT BOOK?!?!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Hello everyone…I felt it necessary after reading my sister's post about our recent encounter with YHL creators John and Sherry that I defend my name (McSister) and my love of wine.
And, well, give MY side of the story.
The truth, if you will.

So I wake up one fine morning (read: hungover) and receive a series of texts from my sister that involved EXCESSIVE CAPITALIZATION and overuse of exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And for those of you who think I’m exaggerating:

I was all like wh-wh-what? John? Sherry? What the What?
Oh shoot…..the BLOGGERS?
Or as my sister likes to refer to then: the "New York Times Best Sellers Authors!!!!!!!”

Let me jump back and give everyone the background story of how I even know the names John and Sherry and Young House Love.
My darling sister sends me a text around, oh, lets say 4PM on a Tuesday to join her at a blogger book signing.

Yea, that would pretty much be the equivalent of asking me to join her at a sand castle building contest on the Jersey Shore during Hurricane Sandy. Not so fun.
Nothing against John and Sherry or Young House of Pain…er, Love…but I had NO idea who these people were.
But as a good sister I obliged (plus my Husband assured me there would be wine provided).
Two points for Team McSister!!

Fast forward to the book signing event….

As I approached I saw a beautiful event outdoors with everyone laughing and drinking wine.
I was pleasantly surprised and instantly happy I agreed to such a fabulous event.

Unfortunately, that was NOT our event.

Nope, ours was the one inside. The one with NO wine.
I had a fleeting thought to ditch our event and start mingling with the wine lovers but my sister had spotted me and was frantically waving me over. So I followed another young couple headed in that direction and breezed in through the glass doors towards the book signing event.
And my sister GASPED.

Apparently, I had walked in with John and Sherry.

McMommy: “No you DID NOT just walk in with John and Sherry!!! Squeeeeeee!!!”
McSister: “What? I walked in with who? Them?” (pointing to a very normal couple standing behind us) McMommy: YES!! THAT’S THEM!!! (proceeds to take a million iphone photos of the innocent couple standing to our right)

I already felt uncomfortable and started thinking…. if only we were AT THE OTHER PARTY….yeah the one outside with all the wine that looked like this….

After a long and interesting Q&A session about John/Sherry/Sherry’s bangs/DIY projects that I would never do or even contemplate doing – it was onto the next portion of this evening: the book signing.

I don’t really know how to explain how my sister was acting but I can only compare her excitement level to something like this:

We were at a Code Red Level of CrazY.

I ,unfortunately, was cast as “photographer” in this scenario and had strict instructions from Ralphie to:

“Get LOTS of photos”
“Keep clicking away, take as many as you can get”
“DON’T be embarrassed if I start talking blogger talk with them – they ARE my friends"

I went from feeling mildly uncomfortable to completely and utterly uncomfortable and I truly felt bad for “our friends” John and Sherry.

I could see through their New York Times Bestseller!! selves and recognize two normal people who probably just wanted a glass of wine on a Tuesday night. But just as I started to relate to them…BAM we were up…and McMommy was on!

Everything happened in a flash, small talk with YHL, sign the book, take the picture, look at the baby look at the baby….okay and we’re done.
McMommy was SO excited I got the photo and she had the signed book and I felt all good about myself for being such a dedicated sister and thought FINALLY we can put this behind us and go relax with a glass of wine…..until……

Saturday, February 9, 2013

I know, I know.
NO ONE reads blogs on the weekend.
And I think I'm breaking some sort of super secret blog-writer pact.

But I had to tell you something very important.

I DID NOT DIE YESTERDAY.

I am here ALIVE....barely moving...but still....
At least there is breath coming in and out of my lungs so that means I'm alive and the world can rejoice. Because you almost lost me to a girl name SaNdeE* and her ballet barre.

Ok, that's not her real name.
But she was exactly like Sarah Jessica Parker from the movie LA Story.
She was little and perky and liked to simultaneously jump and spin around me while yelling ISN'T THISSSSSSSS FUN?!!!!

SaNdeE* is the instructor of a "cardio ballet" class.

Look, I used to take ballet back in the day. How hard could this class be?
In my head, it was going to be like this:

Well, that was the rest of the class.

I was going to be like this, of course:

I was super excited.
I pictured calm, soft music wafting through the air.
A teacher with a delicate voice telling us to Plié in second position.The cardio part? Probably some leg extensions or something. This is brilliant. What a great way to ease back into some cardio. I should have thought of this class months ago!
I made a mental note not to forget to call my mom afterwards to invite her to my recital.

So I get to the class and there are only 4 girls, including me.
I immediately labeled them:
High school girl, high school girl's mom, me, and Kim Kardashian.

I was all: "Wow! How fun is this?! I can do this. And one...and two...and...I'm reaching...I'm reaching....up-to-the-sky...and one...and two..."

Then SanDeE* announced the warm-up was over.

Um.

I'm not going to go into detail about the next 55 minutes of class.
One word pretty much sums it up:
Suicidal.
Also, SanDeE* hates it when you suggest a "rest break".

At one point, when I was laying on the ballet barre, crying, I peeked at my fellow classmates.

Kim Kardashian's mascara was running down her face.
High School girl's mom needed an oxygen chamber.
High School girl? Was smiling and kept saying things like "Am I doing this correctly? It barely burns! Is there a more challenging way I should do this?"

I told her yes. All she has to do is age 19 more years and have two kids.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Dear People Up North Who Are About To Get Hit With a Big Winter Storm,

I heard you are about to get hit with a big winter storm.

(I wrote that last sentence in frowny face font. In case you couldn't tell.)

Is your storm REALLY called NEMO?!?!

This makes no sense to me.

Nemo is adorable and cute.

Your storm is not.

So I thought of a better name for it for you:

Twitter trend alert in the making #BruceTheBlizzard

I was thinking to myself......how can I help you?

And the answer is....I cannot.

(Hey, someone has to stay here and soak up this Florida sunshine.)

But?

MCMOMMYWOOD CAN!!!

Because everyone knows that Hollywood gossip is mindless and ridiculous and PERFECT for #BruceTheBlizzard conditions.

Let's get started:

1.) Anne Hathaway is married. Apparently to Ryan Gosling. And he carries her umbrella for her. While she carries an empty Go-Gurt package in her hand. Why does Ryan look so disturbed? Because his freakishly pointy shoes are killing him. And now he's worried about getting bunions. The End.

2.) Ok, I'm going to admit. I was so sick of Tori Spelling. But then her intestines fell out and suddenly she got my attention again. She instagramed this pic yesterday when their car broke down on their road trip with four kids. SO CUTE AND FUNNY!!! #JustLikeNemo

3.) Who is this? Is she seriously famous? I hear her name is Olivia something or other and she's on tv. Or maybe she was in a movie. I don't know. And I'm already bored with this conversation.

4.) This picture? Makes me feel.......ew. With a side of yuck. And a heaping of "It makes me uncomfortable to even look at this picture" on top.

Ok, ok...here's what I do know: I know I DEFINITELY want a simple font.

With....um.....scripty-ness.

Hmmm.

On second thought....

Forget fonts. Let's put those circle-y things with pics inside!

What are they called? Buttons?

Definitely yellow buttons....

Blue diamonds?

Or purple squares.

Now I'm hungry for a bowl of Lucky Charms.

Needless to say, I could not do this blog re-design alone. A big thank you goes out to several people who have the patience of a saint to put up with me and all my indecisiveness. "Do you like the yellow or the blue better? This one or this one? Better 1 or 2?"
I was more annoying than an eye doctor.

Speaking of doctors, I need to say a HUGE thank you to the main one....the big blog plastic surgeon. He is a friend I have known for seven years via the blog world. He actually used to blog. Now he is writing books. Show-off! And somehow he made the time to help me with all the techy, code-y stuff on the side, while simultaneously battling the stomach flu.

And I was all: DO NOT GET STOMACH VIRUS GERMS ON MY NEW BABY!!!

(Only in a very sweet voice. After I thanked him profusely for making this blog so pretty.)

Friday, February 1, 2013

1. Do you love how I go from blogging one day?To not blogging? For days on end?How I'm all: Here's a post! Two days in a row!Then I'm all: Oh wait....nevermind, the streak is over. Gee, that was quick.Yeah, I KNOW. It annoys the crap out of me too. So I'm sorry for my inconsistent self lately. I'll be better tomorrow. I swear. Kind of.p.s. probably not2. I have the 6-week cough. You know this cough. The one that lingers for like 2 months even though you feel 100% perfectly healthy and have left the original cold waaaaaaay behind??? It drives me crazy. But not as much as all the people who try to tell me it is "allergies". And then proceed to go down the laundry list of allergy medicines I should take. 3. My friend and I went to lunch today. AT DENNY'S. I know, don't even ask. How we ended up there, I have no idea. But? Sitting in a booth not less than 2 feet away from us was Chad Johnson aka Chad Ochocinco. My friend was all excited because she is a huge fan of guys that get arrested for domestic violence. Or maybe she loves football, I'm not sure. As for me, I couldn't remember how I knew his name......and then I remembered! He bought his Dancing with the Stars partner Cheryl Burke a $10,000 ring!!!!! My brain, I tell you, is chock full of extremely important information like this.4. The weather here has been insanely hot this winter. So much so that we've been hanging out by the pool, making fish tacos, and washing it all down with a cold glass of white wine. I'm so seasonally confused. Do I break out my summer purses to go along with the sundresses I've been wearing throughout the month of January? By the way and perhaps more importantly, do we still even call them "purses" anymore? Or are we calling them "handbags"? Is calling it a "purse" like calling a flight attendant a "stewardess"? This is too much thinking for me. Someone help. And bring a cold glass of white wine while you are at it. It's blazing hot here. 5. I'm planning a small birthday party for my son's upcoming 6th birthday. Lo and behold, the "theme" he wants is actually something that can be bought at a Party City or similar type store. Not like the "garbage truck party" or "airplane party" themes I've had my children request in the past. So I thought I would go SKIPPING down the aisle as I loaded up my basket with the easy and oh-so-convenient pre-packaged theme decor. But instead??? I'm all "That's so tacky. Hmmm. Forget this store. I'm going to do this birthday party MYSELF. I'm going to make this theme REALLY NICE. Much more modern. More original. More....chic. But um, in a totally boy way." My ideas are tremendous. Overflowing. Full of possibility. And wonder. And most likely never going to actually happen.Because let's be honest: you already know I am going to be running down the aisle at Party City the day before the party, throwing pre-packaged theme plates and decor into my basket while simultaneously throwing chicness out the window. And you all are going to be shaking your heads, saying things like "THAT IS SO TYPICAL OF HER. So much for her new year's resolution of being a planner-in-advancer. And why is she carrying a summer purse?! It's FEBRUARY!"